


i'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Scars, Trans Lance Hunter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Jemma has never seen her boyfriend without his shirt on; he hasn't seen her without her shirt on, either.
Relationships: Lance Hunter/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	i'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts

“Can I take your shirt off?” Jemma whispered, propping herself up on her elbows so she could look Hunter in the eye. He’d told her when they’d started dating it would take him a long while to warm up to taking his pants off thanks to a healthy dose of bottom dysphoria and Jemma was all too happy to respect that boundary, but he’d never mentioned anything about taking his shirt off. Now that they had spent the last hour making out with her on top of him and Jemma was getting more than a little worked up, it seemed like a natural next step to take at least a little clothing off.

“It’s okay if the answer is no,” she said when Hunter still hadn’t answered thirty seconds later. “I don’t have to see it, I just -”

“I really don’t understand you, Jem,” Hunter interrupted. “Help me get it off.” He lifted his arms above his head and Jemma obliged, pulling his shirt off and revealing his bare chest.

She didn’t mean to stare, but it was the first time she had seen the scars from Hunter’s top surgery, and it was hard not to. They were floss-thin and paler than she would’ve imagined, tracing under the line of his pectoral almost perfectly. 

“Fascinating,” she breathed, reaching for Hunter’s chest before stopping herself. He was already grabbing for his shirt again, and Jemma frowned as he started trying to tug it back on.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m not a science experiment, Simmons,” Hunter snapped, shoving his arms through the holes. That wasn’t good. Hunter only called her _Simmons_ when he was pissed at her.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jemma sputtered. “I just - here, give me a moment.” She swung herself off of Hunter and stripped off her own shirt, turning so he could see the scar that ran from the base of her neck to midway down her spine. It wasn’t nearly as neat or as pale - Jemma’s scoliosis surgery had happened just a month before one of her largest growth spurts, and as a result the scar had stretched and warped until it was much larger than the original incision had ever been.

“I didn’t - I didn’t know you had this.” Jemma flinched on instinct when Hunter touched her back, but made a soft noise of affirmation that it was fine for him to continue exploring with his fingers. He was gentle when he traced the edge of her scar with his fingertips, and gentler still when he pulled her back on top of him.

“I told you I had scoliosis surgery,” Jemma whispered.

“And I told you I had top surgery. Didn’t keep you from looking,” Hunter argued. Jemma nodded - it was a fair point. Knowing someone you loved had scars was different from seeing those scars for yourself. Even if Hunter’s surgery had ultimately been beneficial, there was still a visceral _wrongness_ to knowing he had been hurt. Jemma suspected the same was true for him looking at her scoliosis scar; he knew it had helped her in the end, but it still wasn’t pretty.

“Can I touch?” Jemma asked, once again reaching for Hunter’s chest. He had abandoned putting his shirt on, and it was still sitting in a heap near the pillow.

“I can’t feel it,” Hunter said, “so be gentle.”

“You can’t feel it?” Jemma repeated.

“Nerve damage.” Hunter took her hand and guided it to his pectoral, just beneath his nipple. “Anything from here down to the scar is just kind of numb.”

“Oh.” Jemma stroked her thumb over the smooth skin under her hand, looking at Hunter’s face for any sort of reaction. Like he had said, though, he didn’t feel it at all. “How did that happen?”

“When I got my surgery it was still pretty new.” He shrugged. “They have better techniques now but nerve damage is still one of the known side effects. And I’d rather not be able to feel a couple of inches of skin than to…” he trailed off, and Jemma nodded. She flattened herself against him again so she could kiss the jut of his Adam’s apple gently. The most frustrating part of being with Hunter was that there was so much about him and his experience that Jemma simply couldn’t understand. She wanted to know everything, to always have the right statistic to quote or the right thing to say, but she _didn’t_.

Hunter brushed his fingers through her hair, slow and steady. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Jemma asked, kissing his throat again absently.

“Can you still feel everything around there?”

“Oh, yes.” Jemma cleared her throat. “Even if I couldn’t, the back doesn’t have nearly as many nerve endings, and it’s not particularly important to me to be able to feel there, so…”

“Are you disappointed?” Hunter whispered.

“What?” Jemma lifted her head up. “Why would I be disappointed?”

“Jemma, I know you want to have sex. And since pantsless stuff is off-limits for now it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out you might’ve been thinking about alternate options. Like nipple stimulation.”

“Lance.” Jemma dragged herself further up his body so they were face-to-face again. “That doesn’t matter to me. Well, having sex does because I find you quite attractive and I’d like to be able to show you just _how_ attractive someday, but it’s okay if it takes time. And I’d rather you be comfortable and enthusiastic whenever we do get up to something than too far in your own head about it.” She pecked his lips. “For someone who claims not to be an intellectual, you certainly are good at getting lost in thoughts.”

“It’s because my girlfriend is a nerd,” Hunter declared. “She’s giving me her bad habits.”

“I am _not_!”

“Are so.” Hunter grinned his cheeky grin at her and Jemma huffed, grabbing his face in her hands. 

“Take that back.”

“No,” Hunter flipped them effortlessly so he was on top of her, his body heat radiating down. “You know, Jem, sex doesn’t have to be mutual.”

Jemma’s mouth went dry. “Pardon?”

“I’m saying there are plenty of ways for you to get off without me ever taking off my pants.” He shifted his weight onto only one of his hands so he could slide the other down his body, and Jemma whimpered pathetically. “If that’s what you’d like.”

Jemma swallowed hard. “Can I keep touching you?”

Hunter’s nostrils flared, his hazel eyes darkening. “If you want.”

“I’ll stay where you can feel it?” Jemma suggested, moving her hands so she was north of where on his chest Hunter lost feeling, her fingertips brushing along the lines of his collarbones.

“I’d like that,” he murmured.

Jemma smiled up at him. “I like you.”

And she did - she liked Lance Hunter, scars and all.


End file.
